Google is buying the Frommer’s 55-year-old line of travel guidebooks, the latest move to amass a trove of publishing content that could strengthen the No 1 Internet search company’s push to become a major online travel broker.
The sale by John Wiley & Sons Inc comes nearly a year after Google’s $151 million purchase of Zagat Survey that provides reviews of restaurants, hotels and nightclubs in cities around the world.
As a result, analysts said, Google is increasingly threatening a range of companies, like review site Yelp Inc and flight and hotel booking service TripAdvisor.
